'Students Of Forgery' Foil In Court

OARABILE MOSIKARE
Correspondent | Monday April 16, 2007 00:00

Former students, Mpho Rakodu and Kamogelo Serome's scholarships were terminated for allegedly embellishing their certificates.

Justice Mphaphi Phumaphi said that when he first adjourned the case, it was obvious to the court that something did not add up as both the applicants and the respondents had filed documents purportedly from the same sources, yet the contents of the documents were contradictory.

Justice Phumaphi found that documents filed by the applicants, purporting to be letters written by Violet Mahefu of Speciss College in Zimbabwe, and CB Murira , an Assistant Director responsible for exams administration at the same school, did not meet provisions of the Authentication of Documents Act, and were therefore inadmissible for want of proper authentication.

'The affidavits by CB Murira and Mahefu filed by the respondents, on the other hand, comply with section 9 (b) of the Authentication of Documents Act. I therefore find that the two affidavits by Murira, the two letters by Murira and the affidavit of Mahefu were properly authenticated in terms of the Authentication of Documents Act and I accept them as evidence in this case,' the judge said.

The court found that the effect of the affidavits and two statements by Murira were that applicants' certificates were forged. The applicants had not refuted this 'very damaging evidence' despite the fact that they were given adequate time to do so. 

'It therefore comes as no surprise that the applicants have failed to file authenticated documents to prove that their certificates are genuine. In absence of admissible evidence to prove the authenticity of the certificates and to contradict the evidence provided by the respondents that the applicants were never O' Level candidates in Zimbabwe in 2003, I can only come to one conclusion, and that is that the certificates presented by the applicants to the Department of Student Placement and Welfare (DSPW) before they were sponsored for studies overseas were spurious documents and the DSPW properly withdrew their sponsorships.

'I therefore direct the Registrar to bring this judgement to the attention of the Commissioner of the Botswana Police for appropriate action,' Justice Phumaphi stated.
The application was precipitated by the fact that Rakodu and Serome, who were students of Limkokwing University in Malaysia, received letters dated June 22, 2006 from DSPW in the MoE questioning the authenticity of their Cambridge Certificates which the two had submitted to the DSPW, prior to them being sponsored by the department for further studies in Malaysia.

The letters required the applicants to show cause why their sponsorship should not be terminated in view of the fact that the authenticity of their certificates was doubtful.